Let's talk together about the changing world. The doctor is in.

Alternate Histories: Labor Day

Here’s a story about work that someone told me at the Climate Anxiety Counseling booth when I was set up in Kennedy Plaza (heads up, it has a slur in it):

5/8/15

[When I said he didn’t need to give me a quarter] I used to work for the circus. I set up for the g*psies, I know how it works. I put bikes together at the scrapyard, I fixed ski boats–I used to rent ’em out. I worked for everybody. I worked on that ship, Project Hope, went around picking up sick people, disabled people. I scraped it right down for everybody. We painted it different colors first, then we did whatever they wanted to do with it. I dropped out of school, I did everything, I was in the Peace Corps, Save the Whales … I’m 59 years old, I started when I was 13. I used to be a runner, like for a bakery company. Drunks would give you money to go buy ’em booze. I had so much money in my pocket …. I’d go into the bakery, get the broken cookies. I lived here all my life. I traveled to California, Mexico, Alaska–it’s beautiful. You get six months that’s darkness, then it’s always light.

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And here are three alternate histories about the end of extractive wage labor.